No regret of failure because I learned how to solve the real problems. I used the same problem-solving skills to help my readers when I started writing. I improved my writing skills with time and there is no big magic. It’s all about practice and persistence.

In this post, I will explain the mindset, the common mistakes people do in writing and then nitty gritty of an awesome blog post (title, paragraph formation, credibility, usage of words – skills that are used in copywriting)

Choose your mentors wisely. Follow the advice of someone who has walked on the path on which you are walking. Listen to someone who is 2 steps ahead of you.

I have seen people failing even after joining the courses. You don’t have to join a course to become better at your writing. You can observe the writing of people whom you admire and practice in a similar way.

I never read books on journalism because I did not want to become like a media journalist. I followed people in my life that I want to become like.

#3. They Focus Only on Keyword Stuffing

SEO is our aim but that does not mean we should only focus on keywords. There are certain articles which are written for keyword targetting only, but those articles may not be Game Changer for you.

Keywords are the last thing that I focus on when writing my articles. The quality of content goes down when our mind is filled with keywords.

If you want to become an authority in your industry then shift your focus from keywords to your audience. Ofcourse your blogs will rank with keywords but Google also gives preference to context rather keywords.

There is a science to get faster ranking on high competition keywords when you build a strong context & relevance in the eyes of Google. I will talk about that sometimes later. Let’s focus on writing amazing content.

#4. They Get Carried Away With Media Trends

“Write Short Articles Because Human Attention Span is Less than Gold Fish (8 sec)”, A media reported some similar shit and people went crazy to write short articles.

“1800 words articles went most viral – A report after analyzing one million blog posts”, Another media company posted this article and people started pumping up words mindlessly in their articles.

Even 500-word blog post can go viral if that can touch the emotions of your reader.

Everything works within a context.

The egg becomes hard in boiling water but the same boiling water makes a potato soft.

The internet is boiling water. It depends on you what you put in the boiling water, you would get the results accordingly.

You can keep yourself aware of the market trends but don’t carried away with the opinions.

Mindset Shift from ‘A Blogger’ to ‘A Problem Solver’

#1. Move from Problem to Solution

If you want to be a really really good blogger then stop trying to be a blogger. Become a problem solver.

Identify a problem that your audience is struggling with and solve that through your blog post. If you notice, all my articles start with describing a problem and explain the possible solutions.

If you don’t know what are the problems of your readers then ask them. Ask your readers directly via email or phone. Analyse discussion forums like Quora, Reddit and Facebook Groups to learn about the problems that your target audience is struggling with.

Take help fromSemRush tool to do Keyword Research that will reveal thousands of problems worth solving. Your potential readers are already looking for a solution by searching on Google – why not to capture a big opportunity.

Ask yourself, for whom you want to write for

A news or entertainment blog that gets viral on social media

B2B startup whose audience is top executives or startup founders

A mother who is reading while feeding her baby and interacting with her friends on WhatsApp at the same time.

A research scholar or student who gonna read your article word by word

A tech guy who is following your instructions to fix a defect or install a tool

Or a blogger like YOU, who makes a plan to publish at least one article every week but could not get sufficient time to publish on schedule.

You can’t write to please everyone. Just write for one type of audience.

You may be spending a lot of time on researching & writing the article but receiving a lukewarm response after publishing articles.

I am writing for a blogger like YOU:

.. so that you can spend your time doing the right things when writing the article – so that your audience love your articles every single time. I do not care about how many words the article would be finished. I do not care what media reports are saying. I know what to write and why.

#2. Why the problem is still not solved

Find out why the problem is still not solved. If the problem has already been solved by someone else then why your audience is still struggling.

Today I am trying to solve the problem of “How to Write A Great Article” which has already been solved by many great writers & bloggers. But I am giving you a different mindset, a new framework and same old (& proven) tactics of writing good content writing – All in a single article.

I may not be able to solve the problem for people who can’t find dedicated time to write. I may write a separate article to solve the problem of becoming productive & committed to work.

There are two different solutions for two different set of audiences

One who wants to learn the nitty-gritty of writing

Second who wants to improve productivity (to overcome writer’s block)

Your article would be of great quality when you know why your audience is not able to solve the problem even when the advice is already available on the internet.

4 Golden Nuggets of Writing A Powerful Article

#1. Writing Click Worthy Title

Titles are the most important but neglected element of the blog post. You are doing a big mistake if you are not giving deserved attention to the titles of your articles.

“Title + Featured Image + Short Description” is the first interaction with your reader. If you fail to convince him to click on the article then you would lose the opportunity to showcase what you have written in the article.

I am giving you some formulas which never fail to get a click from the right audience.

You can become [This] Even If You Have [Never Done This]

For example, You can become A Freelance Writer Even If You Have Never Written Before

Another way to apply this formula is to find desires or fears of your audience.

#2. Writing Powerful Paragraphs

Talk about only one point in one paragraph. Write to the point. Keep the paragraphs short.

That may sound like simple & obvious advice but most of the writers do this mistake consistently in the initial days. I fix my paragraphs in the editing phase.

Bullet points

It’s easy to convey short & crisp information in bullet points. Give breathing space to your article. The reader can focus on what they want to read.

Be careful, too many bullet points would also make your article like a to-do list. Make a balance and don’t overuse any of the technique.

Snapshots & Data

This increases the credibility of your article and the reader would trust what you are saying. Another reason to include visual data is to give a break from text. Too much text would make your content boring because not all readers like to read word by word.

They need to get the message as quickly as possible and a single snapshot can say what 1000 words won’t.

Reference to claims

If you are claiming something then add the reference to original research document.

Rather than just saying that “Postive content goes viral than negative”, I would like to give proof of authentic research that “as per Johan Berger’s research positive content picks up social virality faster than negative content” – and give a link to the research.

Use common words

Don’t use corporate jargons or difficult words that people need to refer in the dictionary.

My biggest disadvantage was that I was not proficient in English. My vocabulary is average.

The same became the advance when I started blogging. My target audience was not English scholars or journalists. I was writing for people who graduated from similar colleges and doing the similar kind of job that I was doing.

It was easy for me to convey my messages using the simple to comprehend English without any difficult words. Later I discovered that most of the marketing gurus were suggesting to write in simple language but their students were still trying to impress readers with their vocabulary.

Language is just a way to convey your message. The work is done if you can communicate what you want.

Use power words

Power words grab the attention of the reader and connect with them at the emotional level.

Here are some of the emotions (and sample power words) that put a human into the action.

Love & Lust

Ecstacy

Divine

Arouse

Excite

Hottest

Heavenly

Fear

Beware

Bloody

Deadly

Dangerous

Fail

Horrible

Greed

Win

Discount

Cheap

Costly

Free

Prize

Profit

Anger

Brutal

Bullshit

Curse

Evil

Hate

Pissed Off

You can make a list of power words to emotionally connect with your readers. The words would come naturally to your writing as you practice.

#3. Apply A.I.D.A Formula

This is the most powerful and well-known formula in marketing that we apply in content writing and marketing.

The attention-grabbing starts with the title (where I used ‘even’ clause) and the article keep the reader hooked with examples and promises.

Reader’s attention is the most scarce resource. Your readers will hit the back button if you failed to get the attention within a few seconds of starting your article.

Once they pay attention, we have to keep the content simple yet powerful to make them interested in reading further.

I. Interest

In the second part, we should keep disclosing the secrets or make them wonder what’s coming next.

The 7 steps to identify profitable stocks makes them interested in the process. You readers would leave the article in between if they lose the interest.

You must take care that your content has all the ingredients that we discussed in “#2. Writing Powerful Paragraphs”.

D. Desire

Your content should make the reader desirable in the product, service or process. If there is nothing to be desirable then I wonder why we are writing the article or what problem we are solving.

In this example, the article is intended to make the reader desirable to invest in the stock market.

The segment “Portfolio Construction” and “Portfolio Allocation” does that job. At a subtle level, the entire section of Interest is moving the reader from a casual level to a more serious level.

A. Action

Normally ‘Action’ is defined as buying decision in business terms but we define ‘Action’ as anything measurable that you expect from your reader.

It could be as simple as downloading a PDF or subscribing to your blog.

You can define the action as per your business. In this example, the action is loosely defined as constructing a portfolio and embedded in the “Desire” section.

I could put the action to sell E-book or Course related to stock market investment but that’s not my focus area at this time.

#4. Use Storytelling

Stories inspire people to take action. People remember stories and forget the information.

No one would remember the information that I provided in this article but you would remember the story of my startup failure that I shared in the introduction. I also said that I became better in content writing by practice and anyone can learn the art of writing.

You may not be interested in writing today but whenever you would have a desire to learn writing – your mind will remind you of the story of a guy who failed at startups but got the success with writing.

There are several methods of using stories in your articles but my favourite is the 3-part-story format.

Part 1. Present A Problem

Part 2. Agitate & Stir

Part 3. Solve The Problem

Problem-Solution is the building blocks of great content – that’s what makes every blog post a Game Changer, every single time.

A buck becomes ten when you use the storytelling to present a problem and make it interesting by agitating with the facts & figures.

In the end, you come up with a solution or present multiple solutions for the readers. The marketing trends & platforms will come & go but the storytelling methods would never go out of fashion. Storytelling was working 30,000 years ago when humans started carving caves, storytelling worked when sages wrote Epics like Ramayana & Mahabharata, storytelling worked in printed media and it will work on any online media.

It’s the one skill that will separate great writers from good writers.

Learn bit by bit and become a better blogger & writer in 2019.

Can you please do me a favour?

Can you please share this article with someone who wants to become a better blogger.

Beautifully written article Pardeep, I liked how you explained everything here.

I could really connect with you on the storytelling skills.

But, I got bored while reading Aida Formula, couldn’t take much from that.

Overall, true hard hitting facts. You didn’t write for bloggers who don’t know how to take action steps and give dedicated time.

But, told everything about the right approach to becoming a better blogger by being a problem solver.

Questions that we should ask to ourself?

“Can you shift your focus from earning money to learning the necessary skills first?” “Can you put what your reader wants to read or know rather than sharing your own stories?” “Can you write with the intentions of helping your readers?”

I have gone through your full article and this one is also as engaging as each of your article.

This time round I made notes as well so that I can start practice what I have learned from this article.

Can you see the difference in my writing now 🙂 , I write smaller paragraphs now and it is easy to understand even though I am just a small fry in front of you but people in my circle are kind of liking my writing now.

As I have been learning from you for a long time now so I can relate and understand the value of each component you have shared to bring magic in content writing.

The power of Eye catching headlines, benefit based small description, then AIDA formula to craft engaging and valuable content, Use of Storytelling to make reading more interesting, and using the Power Words to make it more impactful and craft each paragraph with keeping the outcome in favour of targeted audience. That’s all I have learned in this article.

Thank you so much for being there to share your teachings, love and wisdom.

Thanks for the wonderful article Pardeep, bro. I really loved the “Power” words concept, I often use that too, but in the form of Emojis. They personally connect with the readers and gives me the opportunity to keep experimenting!

Thank you for sharing a list of the best content writing tips/advice. Off late, I have been working to start a blog by connecting to audience personally with my stories. While I am not sure if that is close to AIDA, I’m definitely gonna make some learning out of this and gonna tweak articles for good.